Giving Voice to the Academe: Rich Food for Thought in the Quest for Quality Research

Wingrove, Dallas

Tertiary Education and Management, v18 n2 p131-151 2012

This paper reports and analyses findings from a qualitative study that explored the impact of organizational policy, cultures and support structures on the research pathways of early career researchers within one Australian university. The author captured the perspectives and experiences of six early and six senior researchers and examined the degree to which respondents perceived their university was effective in supporting the early career researcher to sustain and progress their research. As this paper explores, giving voice to academics' lived experiences of research raised questions as to the efficacy of existing institutional support structures as significant gaps between internal research policy and the lived research experience on the ground were revealed. Ultimately, understanding academics' lived experiences of research may not only build institutional knowledge to inform and enhance institutional capacity to more effectively sustain and grow quality research, but also strengthen advocacy for much-needed and targeted external research funding. (Contains 1 table.)